In 2010, the Brazilian government passed a law requiring all Brazilian schools to have a library by the year 2020. Six years later, the country is still facing unique roadblocks in their progress towards this goal – roadblocks that visiting professor Dr. Adriana Duarte will be examining during her time with us in Tallahassee.

Before a school can establish a library, the human capital required to operate one must be sourced or trained. This is where Dr. Duarte is focusing her research with Florida State University’s School of Information. “I came to FSU to do a research in a sabbatical year from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, where I am an associate Professor,” says Duarte, “a major problem for Brazil is that the librarian undergraduate and graduate schools at universities train generalists, and almost never include include courses that discuss school libraries.”

Dr. Duarte will be observing library classes in FSU’s Master’s in Information program as well as interviewing librarians from Leon County public schools during her research. She hopes to find solutions in the way school librarians are trained in the U.S. that are scalable for Brazil’s needs, “We are not forming school librarians / media specialists to work in all these new required school libraries that will be needed in the next few years. The overall objective of this research is to find possibilities for development and improvement for the school library curricula and for the Brazilian school libraries.”

Welcome to Florida State University Dr. Duarte!